Why urban resource management is the missing link in energy security  

As policymakers and industry leaders prepare for London Climate Action Week and EU Sustainable Energy Week from June 21-24, it's time for resilient urban planning to dominate the discussion.

Local energy independence is often framed around renewable production, but leaders have so far overlooked one of the most powerful tools available - smarter resource management. By integrating water efficiency, energy optimisation and digital monitoring, urban infrastructure can significantly reduce demand and dependence on centralised power systems.

Water networks, treatment facilities and pumping systems are among the most energy-intensive components of municipal infrastructure. When cities deploy smart sensors and digital platforms, they can detect leaks, reduce pumping loads and manage demand more efficiently.

Water-tech industry addressing challenges

As climate pressures intensify and the world faces increasing water scarcity challenges, there has never been a greater need for sustainable water innovations. Fortunately, we are in the midst of a movement towards development and adoption of technology-driven solutions.

According to water industry trade body Water UK, leaks present an ongoing headache for the UK water industry, with an estimated 19% of the water supply lost before it ever reaches consumers. More than three billion litres of treated drinking water are lost to leaks every day.

However, thanks to advances in technology, AI-powered detection tools finally moved from a promising pilot scheme to a practical frontline solution.

A team at Wolverhampton University, along with its partners, are working on ‘Space Eye’, which uses the latest satellite technology for faster, more accurate and cost-effective monitoring.

The partnership was awarded a share of Ofwat’s £1.3m Innovation Fund to build, launch and operate a fleet of six Low Earth Orbit micro-satellites to help provide intelligent water infrastructure management. The satellites’ high-frequency imaging delivers data every six hours, providing greater detail for pinpointing leaks, using machine learning to improve accuracy and significantly lowering detection costs, compared with current satellite-based methods.

Another standout innovation is the deployment of AI systems, which uses sound to find leaks beneath the ground in London after Thames Water partnered with Fido and Microsoft to tackle the capital’s water waste.

Although the project launched in 2023 – the target was set to reduce leaks by 20% by 2025.  With 95% of leaks taking place underground, finding and fixing them is a major challenge.

On-the-ground teams place acoustic sensors throughout the underground pipe network. The sensors feed data back to the FIDO system to analyse the sound of leaks, flows, flushes or other types of vibrations.

Meanwhile, smart water meters are enabling households and businesses to track usage more accurately, helping to curb demand and ease pressure on energy-intensive water systems.

The result is lower energy consumption, reduced operating costs and greater resilience across both water and energy networks.

The water, energy, carbon nexus

The UK has made real progress in decarbonising power, but demand-side efficiency is lagging behind. Water is a hidden driver of energy use in buildings, industry and public services and is inextricably linked to both energy use and carbon emissions. Hot water alone can account for up to a quarter of household energy demand, while leakage, over-abstraction and inefficient treatment inflate costs across the system.

Reducing water waste is one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest ways to reduce energy use and carbon emissions simultaneously. And showers are the biggest single users of water in the home. This is not about tackling the issue with behaviour change alone, it is also about policy changes, improved infrastructure, incentives and investment decisions.

Parts of Kent and Sussex in the UK face serious water issues, and at the end of May, the regional utility service sent out customer notices appealing for customers to immediately cut down on everything but essential water use.

Hotter, drier summers, growing population pressures and increasing regional imbalances in supply are converging into a new reality - drought risk is no longer hypothetical - it is structural.

The policy response has focused on long-term resilience. New reservoirs, inter-regional transfers, desalination and leakage reduction are all coming into play. But these are slow solutions, often taking years - if not decades - to deliver and desalination can have negative impacts on marine ecosystems.

Meanwhile, thousands of smaller, distributed interventions - leakage reduction, smart metering, water reuse, efficiency in buildings and industry - remain under-funded despite delivering faster returns. These measures reduce demand at source, cut energy use and build resilience across the system and are equally worthy of both attention and investment.

Behavioural change delivering impact

According to the UN, cities are responsible for over 70% of global emissions and while smart infrastructure promises efficiency, technology cannot solve resource scarcity.

The real opportunity lies in behavioural change technology that nudges individuals and organisations to use less water and energy. By combining smart data with human psychology, cities can help reduce consumption dramatically without compromising quality of life.

In a UK pilot study which launched in 2025, smart-technology using behavioural prompts in hotel showers have reduced water use by over half, illustrating how gentle nudges can reshape habits.

In another study, technology trialled by researchers at the University of Surrey involving 17,500 hotel showers in the UK, Denmark and Spain, shower lengths were reduced by up to 26% – the equivalent to around 10 litres of (hot) water per shower. Researchers explored a behaviour change technique known as continuous, real-time eco-feedback, feeding instantaneous information back to a user with the purpose of reducing their environmental impact.

The research could lead to better strategies for tackling water use in the tourism industry, where people can use up to 250 more litres of water per day than at home. 

Whole society approach to water

A new Environment and Climate Change Committee report ‘Surviving drought: reclaim the rain’, highlights England’s public water supply deficit of 5 billion litres a day by 2055.  The report calls on the government to take ‘urgent action’ to address drought resilience, which includes fostering a whole society approach to water, with goals for maximum daily water use of 105 litres per person in new homes.

And in some parts of the world, less water results in less energy with drought and low water levels resulting in Czechia hydro electric energy dropping by up to 50%.

For utilities and city leaders, the opportunity lies in treating water, energy and digital infrastructure as a single integrated system. Cities that adopt this approach can strengthen local energy security, cut emissions and in the longer term build more resilient urban services - demonstrating that the path to energy independence begins not just with new power sources, but with managing existing resources far more intelligently.